PRINCE DIANE AND PRINCE GRACE | 2000-10-28
We have all been in situations, especially when we were kids, where we acted polite when we were being hostile. "Yes, SIR!" we would say mockingly, or we would say "I guess Your Majesty would..." and so forth.
The same thing happens with Political Correctness. If you get too formally PC, you begin to sound insulting. When I was working in the Polish steel district of Chicago, I would not have DARED to refer to those people as "Polish people." They were proud of being pretty rough working people, and they called themselves "Pollacks."
I grew up calling myself a Rebel and a Methodist. Both of those words were originally insults. But as we matured we became proud of our identity, and adopted the insult as a compliment. That, to me, is the best kind of revenge.
In fact, in American and Anglo-Saxon history, that has normally been the final revenge of new groups. Instead of forcing everybody else to call us by some Politically Correct term, we just adopted what was an insult as a term of pride. That is how the Mormons adopted that term. That is how the Whigs and the Tories got their names. That is how Yankees got their name.
The list is very, very long, including Sandlappers, Sooners, Tarheels, Buckeyes ("a bean of no value"), and just about every nickname we now take pride in. The donkey and the elephant that the major parties use today were both originally used to represent them in HOSTILE cartoons.
I have pointed out how many Jews of my acquaintance -- like the "Pollacks" -- were very suspicious of the Politically Correct terms. People I associate with tend to be proud of what they are, and I have often heard some version of the words, "I'm not Jewish, I'm a Jew."
It surprised me to see one PC advisor on television the other day AGREEING with me. He said didn't know any Jews who would refer to themselves as "Jewish persons" or "adherents of the Hebrew faith," as many overcautious gentiles do.
But his next sentence brought me face to face with a new Politically Correct breakthrough. He said, "We don't use the old term 'Jewess,' though, because it is a put-down, LIKE THE WORD ACTRESS."
Well, I had noticed actresses are often referred to in the media as "actors," but I had not realized that "actress" was in the same category as The N Word.
Which brings up the case of Prince Dianne. Now if "actress" is a put-down, "princess" is even more of one. An "actress" has legal equality with an "actor," but a "princess" is legally inferior to a "prince." No matter what age she is, a princess loses the all-important promotion to monarchy to a prince of any age.
So if you refer to "the late Princess Grace of Monaco," you are being insulting. They don't still execute people for insulting royalty any more, but if the progression of Hate Laws continue, they may start throwing you in jail for this sort of thing.